The Tym Tatanka signature boost

This has been a while coming and thanks to Brett for being SO patient with me. We were ready to release this when "Munchkin madness" hit and I was completely snowed under (still am !) but it's time to put some time aside for the other great people I work with and get some stuff done for them too.

Last time US indie band Built to Spill toured Australia Brett and Jim dropped into Tym guitars to talk pedals and music. They are lovely people and have an appreciation for gear and people very close to my heart. Jim bought a Big Mudd and we talked fuzzes.

Jim makes pedals also and I hope to one day have some of his in my collection. Brett and I started talking boosts, something very close to Bretts heart. According to Jim, Bretts “got hundreds of ‘em” so I pulled out the prototype for my new Tone Boost I’d been working on and gave it to Brett for sound check to try out. This is the actual pedal Brett tried.

I was going back to the gig later that night and said we’d catch up and chat more about gear and music. I got there just as the band before was finishing and didn’t get a chance to talk to Brett about the boost before he went on. I was side stage while they played and when Brett saw me he pointed to the floor and gave me a big smile and a thumbs up !! The Tone Boost was there on the floor.

After the show we got talking and he said how much he loved it. Even Jim commented that they were so impressed with it during sound check that Brett “had to”use it for the show. I was honoured and happy that someone like Brett would love my gear, especially given his love of boosts.

After the show Brett and I talked about making this his signature pedal and he had a couple of suggestions to custom tailor it to his needs. I was more than happy to do these and after a couple of prototypes sent to Brett, we were ready to go.

This is essentially the same pedal as my "Big Box" Tone Boost with a couple of very small mods to suit Brett's requests.

Brett and I had talked “politics” and the state of things and clicked with our beliefs and leanings so when it came time to talk “money” we both decided that the best way to go was to donate profits to a charity of Brett’s choosing.

Here’s a little “press release” Brett wrote for the release.

“Realize when you buy this pedal that money is going to the preservation of the last native herd of wild buffalo through the work of The Buffalo Field Campaign. It was built with care and competence by one of us, not by some huge corpo factory. This will wake your simple vintage style circuit right the hell up. Play it loud and play it wild. For the Yellowstone bison. And because people like Tim are also a rare breed.”

Thanks to people like Brett Netson who believe in supporting independent business and care about environmental and social issues as much as music. They can and often should go hand in hand.